'Motorcycle Diaries': On the road with a young Che

Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, September 30, 2004

In January 1952 "two lives running parallel for awhile" took to the open road on an 8,000-mile journey from their homeland of Cordoba, Argentina, winding through the interior of South America to Peru.

Riding a broken-down, "oil peeing" motorcycle affectionately called "The Mighty One," 29-year-old biochemist Alberto (Rodrigo de la Serna) and 23-year-old medical student Ernesto (Gael Garcia Bernal) set out to explore the continent "they had only known in books."

The journey will awaken a social consciousness and mold Ernesto, who later was known as Che Guevara the guerrilla leader who joined Fidel Castro in the overthrow of the Cuban government in 1959 and was killed in Bolivia in 1967 while trying to foment revolt there.

Director Walter Salles, who made another glorious road movie a few years back called "Central Station," captures the epic self-confidence of the young and the immortality and resilience they exude.

The film, based upon Guevara's journals, portrays Ernesto as a fragile, doted upon, asthmatic man, almost a sponge who feels everything and misses nothing. His pal Alberto is the opposite -- a pleasure-seeking, happy fellow who is teasingly called "chubby" and whose goal is to meet as many women as possible.

The pair embark upon their life-changing road trip with a naive optimism and face harsh weather, starvation, illness and an exquisite loneliness. Bernal's wide-eyed warmth and accessibility draws us in and he delivers another fine performance after "Y tu Mama Tambien" and "Amores Perros." And if his wide-eyed Ernesto bears little resemblance to a fierce Marxist named "El Che" that some reviewers have grumbled about glorifying, well, that's another film altogether.

Salles presents the evolutionary course of a young man who coincidentally became the dorm-room poster boy for an idealistic generation, and captures the lovely, heart-and-eye-opening ode to youthful possibility with affection and compassion.